pogali

96 ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND
“Call it what you like,” said the Cat. “Do you
play croquet with the Queen to-day?”

“I should like it very much,” said Alice, “but
I haven’t been invited yet.”

“You’ll see me there,” said the Cat, and van-
ished.

Alice was not much surprised at this, she was
getting so well used to queer things happening.
While she was still looking at the place where it
had been, it suddenly appeared again.

“By-the-bye, what became of the baby?” said
the Cat. “I’d nearly forgotten to ask.”

“It turned into a pig,” Alice answered very
quietly, just as if the Cat had come back in a
natural way.

“I thought it would,” said the Cat, and vanished
again.

Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it
again, but it did not appear, and after a minute
or two she walked on in the direction in which
the March Hare was said to live. “I’ve seen hatters
before,” she said to herself: “the March Hare will
be much the most interesting, and perhaps, as this
is May, it wo’n’t be raving mad — at least not so
mad as it was in March.” As she said this, she

PIG AND PEPPER

97

looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on
a branch of a tree.

“Did you say ‘pig,’ or ‘fig’?” said the Cat.

“I said ‘pig’,” replied Alice; “and I wish you
wouldn’t keep appear-
ing and vanishing so
suddenly: you make

one quite giddy!”

“All right,” said the
Cat; and this time it
vanished quite slowly,
beginning with the end
of the tail, and ending
with the grin, which remained some time after the
rest of it had gone.

“Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,”
thought Alice; “but a grin without a cat! It’s the
most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!”

She had not gone much farther before she came
in sight of the house of the March Hare: she
thought it must be the right house, because the
chimneys were shaped like ears and the roof was
thatched with fur. It was so large a house, that
she did not like to go nearer till she had nibbled
some more of the left-hand bit of mushroom, and
raised herself to about two feet high: even then

NEW YORK, 1929 THE BURSTEIN COLLECTION

Octavo